Wedding Shoes

Partner and I have been married for almost 8 years.  I was wearing my wedding shoes the other day and noticed a couple of things:
(1) It's cool that I'm wearing my wedding shoes 8 years later.  Our culture's wedding traditions don't lend to much that lasts.  The flowers die, the dress shrinks, and the music stops.  Heck, statistics show that the marriage itself only lasts about half the time.  I went into my wedding (and my marriage) with practicality in mind.  So that's where these come in:

(2) If I wear them too long, they start to rub the skin raw on the back of my feet.  They didn't used to do this.  But pregnancy, in combination with life in general, tends to change one's body shape over the years.  This is also true of my marriage.   The first bit was cute and the perfect accessory.  Even practical, actually.  And then life happened.  And somewhere in that process, I began to notice that Partner sometimes rubs me the wrong way.  Rubs me all the way to raw.  Because marriage is HARD.  Being in a partnership where you put all sorts of assets (financial, emotional, and human) in a shared basket is a classic definition of vulnerable.  Re-evaluating the value of those assets to make big decisions (where should we live?  what career should I have?  where should we send our kids to school?).  TOUGH STUFF.

(3) I haven't gotten rid of them yet (the shoes or the husband).  I also haven't tortured myself with raw skin.  I invested in some medical tape and artificially create some "thick skin" on the spots I know get get tender.  In my marriage, this looks like adding "reinforcement" in the form of caffeine, sleep, time in the sun, and good music. This also looks like informing Partner of "tender areas."  

SIDEBAR: After 12 years together, Partner appears to know things I don't know I know.  Kinda sweet.  And creepy.  But he mostly uses this power for good, not evil.  

  

Bartering Binkies

Kiddo 2.0 inherited partner's sleep habits.  As in, she can lay in a dark room, with a binky and a sound machine and stay awake for hours.  Thankfully, partner has similar sleep habits and is willing to take the late/early shifts when Kiddo 1.0 and I are sleeping like normal human beings.  This has been a lovely arrangement until 2 recent developments:
1.  Kiddo 2.0 is potty trained and uses this as a ploy for late night ventures from her room.
2.  Kiddo 1.0 is in the process of giving up her nap (yes, she still naps.  yes, she's starting kindergarten) & falls asleep waaaaaaaaayyy before kiddo 2.0.  And Kiddo 2.0 likes to live on the edge and do crazy things like GO INTO HER SISTERS ROOM after sister is asleep.

This is a big problem because those potty trips and sister mutiny sessions cut into my sacred evening time when I do things like stare at walls and use the bathroom and finish all the meals I started at various points during the day.

So, my most very-thought-out-totally-recommended-somewhere-in-a-book-I-haven't-had-time-to-read strategy is to make Kiddo 2.0 trade her binkies for potty trips.  Every time she gets out of bed, she has to sacrifice a binky.  She sleeps with multiple binkies, so I'm really not a mean mom.  Just a tired, impatient one who makes her choose between her security object or using the bathroom.  I'm not sure, but I'm thinking it's somewhere between preschool and kindergarten that you earn basic privileges in our home, like unfettered access to the bathroom and goldfish crackers box.

Lately, I'm really leaning into the theology that if it isn't okay, it's not the end.  That love and good intentions and peace will have the final word.  And if it's a season of heartache and lethargy and overwhelm, there's another season coming.  All of this is to say that I'm pretty sure Jesus doesn't want me to end my day navigating potty breaks and sister fights.  I'm pretty sure Jesus wants me to end my day in a quiet house, with a glass of wine, reading pointless information on Facebook.  So while bartering binkies probably isn't a solid parenting practice, I'd definitely consider it a spiritual one.